by Pat Esden
He walks toward her. Broad-shouldered. Shaved head. Bare chest. I’ve seen him before. Kissing Mama in my moonlit bedroom. They thought I was asleep. Dad wasn’t home.
My heart is racing now. Racing and I cannot breathe. This isn’t the game we were playing.
He holds out his hand. “No,” she says, backing away. There are broad-shouldered men all around her. Dark men, like black paper cutouts. Black like shadows. “Stay away!” she screams.
“Mama!” I shout, running toward them. The glint of moonstone and a knife’s blade flashes in my face as he wraps himself around her. A heartbeat later, he vanishes, turning into smoke, a whirling tornado of shadows. I can’t see Mama anymore. Just darkness, as thick and real as congealing blood. So real it burns my nose and eyes. “Mama!” I scream.
* * *
My eyes flashed open.
“Malphic’s knife,” I blurted out.
Everyone stared at me expectantly.
“What are you talking about?” Dad asked.
“He uses it to slice the veil open. It’s at least as powerful as Lotli’s flute. We could use it to open any weak point we want.”
Mother nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that before, but you’re right.” Her shoulders slumped. “But there’s one huge problem with that idea. Aside from when he’s undressed, Malphic keeps the knife on his person all the time.”
I grinned. “But Malphic isn’t the only one with a knife like that. Chase has its twin.” My voice lifted, strong and confident. “I’m positive he has it with him. I saw it beside the mattress in the cell with his other weapons. He took everything.”
“Annie,” Mother said, her tone gentle. “I know how you feel about Chase. But it would be even harder to get something away from him than Malphic. He’s not the same man he was. He’ll lash out at anyone who goes near him.”
My face went hot. Chase loved her like a mother and it took so little for her to abandon him. . . .
I bit my tongue. As much as I wanted to let my resentments toward her resurface and lash out, it was wrong. I knew she didn’t want to abandon him. She was upset about Chase. But she wanted to protect me more. And I appreciated that, but I couldn’t go along with it.
I swiveled to Dad. “I’m not going to leave him out there to die in the desert. The knife just gives me another reason to find him.”
Dad’s eyes lingered on my face for a second. “I know. I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t,” I said. “I know you want to. But he’ll feel less threatened if it’s just me. I can find him easily.”
Jaquith gave a heavy sigh. “You do realize he could be dead. He had some severe wounds and he’s not immortal.”
I rubbed my chest, the weight of what he and Mother were saying aching inside me. I pulled the egg pendulum out from under my neckline. “If that’s the case, then he won’t be a danger to me. Seriously, with my pendulum it’ll only take a minute to locate him. I’ll get a general direction in here, then go outside and do it again.” I faked a smile. “Promise, I won’t even approach him. I’ll just find him, then come back and get help.”
CHAPTER 27
Strip away the skin of regret and the sinew of revenge. Bury me in the desert. A cage of bones, I await the rain, a seeded oasis biding my time.
—Excerpt of poem by Josette Savoy Abrams Beach Rose House, Bar Harbor, Maine
I lied. I told them the egg showed me where Chase was. Not far, just over the dune outside the shelter. If he was beyond reason, I’d return and get help. Then I wrapped my veils around my head and forged my way out of the shelter and back into the storm.
In truth, the tug I’d felt on the egg was faint and erratic at best. I’d faked its larger movements with slight twists of my fingers and wrist. This time it hadn’t been a matter of magic interfering with my energy, like when I was near the staircase. My gut told me it was probably stress. But another voice whispered that perhaps Lotli had done more damage than just temporarily weakening me when she held my hand.
I turned on my flashlight. Its beam reflected against the blowing sand, brightening only the first few feet ahead of me. Still, it gave me a measure of comfort from the fear of what I was doing.
The wind snapped my veils. As I climbed the dune, the sand shifted and tumbled beneath me. When I was certain the flashlight’s brightness couldn’t be seen from the shelter, I knelt with my back to the wind, braced the light between my knees, and pulled the egg pendant out.
My mouth dried. I had to be careful. If the chain broke and slipped through my fingers, the sand would swallow any trace of it in a second.
I let the egg dangle and hunched over to shield it from the storm as best as I could. Still the wind pushed it away from my body, then to one side and back, never giving the egg’s weight a chance to get centered.
Frustration knotted inside me. I closed my eyes, sand and tears sticking my lashes to the head mask’s gritty silk. “Please,” I moaned against the wind. “Please, Hecate, show me what I’ve lost.”
I shoved aside the sensation of my lashing veils. I tuned out the sting of sand against my shoulders. I focused and breathed deep, the vapor of my breath hot and humid against the mask. “Hecate. Show me what I’ve lost. Where is Chase?”
The wind spun the egg away from my body. But beneath that, there was the slight draw of something else, an independent movement, gathering strength.
The chain arched against the wind, the egg undulating back toward me. A hard pull, intensifying as adrenaline rushed into my veins. Chase. Where is he?
I held my breath and refused to let my focus waver from the egg, but some distant part of my body took the flashlight from between my knees. With the flashlight in one hand and the chain in the other, I rose to my feet.
Unwavering and fierce, the egg’s pull led me farther from the shelter. The wind screeched in my ears. My legs strained against the sucking sand. And as I pressed on, a memory seeped into my thoughts: Once, when I was maybe eight or nine years old, I’d gotten caught in a snow squall in the woods behind our house in Vermont. Sleet and hard snow drove against me, blinding me as I struggled to find my way home. That day, I hadn’t been scared. I’d known I’d make it as long as I didn’t give up. I wasn’t going to give up this time either. I was a Freemont, named after Stephanie Freemont, a woman who had braved the high seas, an explorer, a woman who had excavated a cursed tomb and unearthed jars filled with Solomon’s genies. A woman who had faced Death herself off the shores of Madagascar.
The wind whirled faster around me, a cyclone of stinging red and black. The egg stopped pulling me forward and began spinning in the same direction as the wind, a tight spiral spinning closer and closer to a center point. “No!” I shouted. “Don’t stop. Show me what I’ve lost!”
The egg went motionless.
The wind died without warning. The silence that followed was deafening after the roar of the storm. Waning moonlight and the aurora’s smolder now illuminated the world around me.
I stood at the top of a dune. Behind me, the muted outline of the shelter sat about fifty yards down the slope, half-covered in sand. Beyond it, Malphic’s fortress loomed. Ahead of me were only peaks and valleys of rippled crimson sand, shadowed in black.
“Please,” I murmured, straining to see just a little farther.
On the summit of the next dune there was a glimmer of blue: the lone shape of someone kneeling.
The moonlight brightened for a heartbeat and I caught the glint of a knife in his hands. The point of a blade held against his chest, readying to thrust.
“Chase!” I screamed, running toward him.
He didn’t glance my way. He lifted the knife outward, two hands firmly gripping it.
Time slowed down. The flashlight fell from my hands. I pumped my arms. I pushed my legs, running as hard as I could. The distance between us stretched out, miles of red and black, the dune as tall as a mountain. The aurora illuminated his face, darkened by shadows. Eyes vacant. Blue fire undulating along th
e marks on his skin. I’d never get to him in time. Never.
He looked skyward, howled, and thrust the knife inward.
I dove, shoving him to the sand.
He was on top of me, his eyes wild with fury, his knife now aimed at me. The knife slammed downward. I rolled out of the way, the blade slicing the air beside my head. A fist flew toward my face. I flung my hands up, shielding the blow. A crack and pain erupted across my knuckles, sharp in my wrists. I crabbed backward. I couldn’t win this. I couldn’t fight him.
He prowled toward me on all fours, his head, chest, and shoulders all bare. His ocean-blue eyes, black with rage. His mouth, a vicious slash. An aura of blue flames crackled all around him. The loose fabric of his white pants twisted in a sudden surge of wind.
I reached for my dagger. There had to be an answer here. There had to be.
My dagger was gone.
But his moonstone knife glinted in the sand a yard away from me.
I sprung toward it. My fingers closed around its handle. His hand clamped my ankle, yanking me toward him. Readying to kick, I rolled onto my back.
My brain engaged. Chase had been raised as a slave. He’d been trained to follow orders. I pulled myself upright and looked him straight in the eyes. I hardened my voice and snapped, “Warrior. Halt!”
He blinked and went rigid, his fingers an immobile band around my leg.
“I am on your side,” I said, more gently.
His brow lowered, casting deeper shadows across his eyes.
I pushed the moonstone knife under my body, hiding it in the sand. “I am Annie. I am here for you. I would never desert you. . . .” I spoke slow and firm, enunciating each word with sharp authority.
He stared at me, his grip still tight. I didn’t dare pull off my veils or remove the silk mask. I barely dared move at all.
“It’s okay. I’m here to help you.”
His aura’s flames settled into a hot glow. More than anything, he looked confused and terrified. I eased my hand forward, toward where his hand clamped my leg.
“Relax. Breathe deep. Calm, peaceful, focused, and in control.” I was grasping at straws, but at least he wasn’t trying to kill me now.
He blew out a shallow breath, his chest rising as he sucked in a deeper one.
I scrunched forward and wedged my fingertips between my ankle and his stiff fingers, loosening his hold. He withdrew his hand and looked at it, his brow furrowing as if he wasn’t a hundred percent sure the hand belonged to him. His gaze shifted to me.
“I’m Annie,” I said, super hushed. “I love you.”
He cocked his head and something fluttered through his eyes. Recognition?
His eyes went blank. He seized his head between his hands and leapt to his feet, yowling as if his skull were exploding from the inside out. He dropped to the ground in a quivering ball, yowls transforming into moans.
I grabbed the moonstone knife, shoved it into the folds of my sarong. Then I knelt down and wrapped my arms around him, hugging him as tight as I could, trying the only way I could think of to give him comfort. Desperation ached in my chest. “Shush. It’s okay. Relax. . . .”
The wind surged again, the sand rising with it in biting waves, crashing all around, burying us in its blood-red weight. Beneath my arms, Chase shook with spasms and blazing heat. He curled up and whimpered, like he did when he had nightmares about being kidnapped as a child.
“Annie, I can’t hold on.” He groaned.
Tears washed down my face. He’d said my name. He knew I was here. “You have to hold on. I can’t lose you.”
Sweat slicked his head, his back, and arms. His aura flared, a wildfire crackling against my skin. The brand on his collarbone glowed white-hot. Chase. My Chase. I didn’t want him to die and become nothing more than a body laid to rest behind a carpet garlanded with coins and ravens. I didn’t want him to lose his mind and go berserk.
Inevitable, a voice whispered inside me.
I held him tighter. No, it couldn’t be.
When I’d first met Jaquith he’d told me that all genies went through the change, but that it was worse for half ifrits. Chase had said he could slow the change down, delay it. But he couldn’t stop it from happening. It was as inevitable as him growing from a boy to a man, from a child to a father.
My stomach sank. Then my pulse quickened.
I let go of him and sat up, the wind chilling my heated body. Perhaps the change was inevitable. But its outcome wasn’t. There was another choice. The one Malphic was hoping for. Chase could beat the odds and survive. He could become a Death Warrior.
Hope sparked in my chest. Chase had told me Death Warriors were gladiators who fought to entertain the genies, but I now had the feeling that was an understatement. A Death Warrior was something more highly honored, rarer and harder to achieve than just a warrior simply beating the crap out of other combatants to reach the top of the food chain. It had little to do with reaching a specific age or being allowed to wear a special uniform. A Death Warrior was the victor in a battle against his own nature, a warrior of genie blood who’d survived the change and not gone berserk.
Chase moaned, his fingers and bare feet digging into the sand. I spooned in behind him, sheltering him from the storm. If Malphic thought Chase could make it through this, then I should, too. Another thought came to me and a sour taste crawled up my throat. Malphic hadn’t been the only one pushing Chase toward the change. Lotli had as well.
“I’m here. I’m not going to desert you,” I whispered. “Let go. Let it take you.” I pressed my cheek against his back. Even through the wall of his muscles and skin, I could hear the heated rhythm of his heart. What I needed was a way to make the change easier for him, something other than just words.
Beneath my cheek his skin twitched. Feverish quivers. He stiffened and vomited, clamping his arms around his middle. He began to convulse, spittle foaming from his mouth. His groans and screams echoed in my ears, as piercing as the wind.
With one last gasp, he rolled over onto his back and went dead-still. His eyes were wide open.
Horrified, I could only stare. And beyond him, through the settling sand, I glimpsed a trace of brightness on the eastern horizon. Oh my God. Sunrise couldn’t be more than an hour away.
A hollow sense of inevitability took root in my chest. But this feeling wasn’t about Chase or the change this time. This was what I’d felt weeks ago in Moonhill’s cemetery, the first time I’d seen my ancestors’ graves. A sense that I was exactly where I belonged, that everything I’d gone through had been building toward this. I just needed to find the next step.
My gaze swept to the six dark marks, right below Chase’s sternum.
Without giving myself time for second thoughts, I straddled him. He didn’t move or cry out when I pressed my fingers inward exactly as Lotli had done. I wasn’t hexad, but there had to be a reason she’d given me the hummingbird egg. That, combined with the way my pendulum had moved against the storm, had made me wonder if it had been my energy and not the realm’s that she’d wanted to acquire. And there was another thing. I wasn’t just a Freemont. I was my mother’s daughter as well.
I wet my lips and whispered, “Relax. Focus. I’m here. We’re going to do this together.”
I slowed my breathing, bringing to mind what it felt like when Chase and I made love. I thought about the time on the clifftop when he came to me and kissed my palm: nothing else in the universe except him and me.
His aura began to shimmer like blue sapphires. I pressed my fingers harder against him. Focusing, channeling my energy into him, nothing else in my mind, nothing else except us.
Despite the Methuselah oil, my fingers turned ethereal, melding into his skin. My arms, my shoulders, my forehead followed, gray wisps of light penetrating the cells of his body, filling his veins, his heart, his mind, loaning him my strength. My love. Making him more than whole. My head swam from the power of it. I was warm. I was ecstatic. I was ethereal.
“Let
it take you,” I murmured. “Give in. Accept. I’m with you.” My voice was breath in his lungs, my words warmth in his ears. His lips were on mine, the kiss slow and long and deeper than seemed possible. The red and black of the sand rose up around us, cascading down in pinpoints like rain, like the fountains in Rome, like sharp ashes drifting from ajar.
His aura flickered and went out. His body rigid. His voice filled with hurt. “She said you didn’t—”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “She lied. I’m here. I need you.”
I kissed his throat. I kissed his chest. I rolled him onto his stomach, working my forearm against his buttock, rolling stokes, firm and determined. His corded muscles flinched, then loosened under my fingertips. I worked them against his thighs, his calves. I rolled my fist against the arch of his foot. His aura burned like a comet, sparks and heat. And he surrendered, letting my energy inside again. And it occurred to me that perhaps we both had died. This didn’t seem like it could be a part of life.
Our sparks joined. There was no him or me, only light and warmth, both of us ethereal—
White light flashed.
And I was lying on the sand, my body entirely solid once more, gasping for breath.
I clawed at the veils, ripping them off. I dug my fingernails under one edge of the face mask, peeling myself free from the grit-coated prison.
Fresh air hit my lungs. I gulped a breath, and another and another until my head stopped spinning. Chase.
He sprawled on the dune beside me, bloody, bruised, and motionless. And alive?
His body jerked and shuddered—and he began to cough, wheezing like a drowned man returning to life.
Relief flooded through me. I was about to drop down beside him and throw my arms around his neck, when panic hit me. The aurora still fluxed overhead. But how long had we been out of it? An hour? A day?
I whirled toward the eastern horizon.
A faint thread of light spread along it. As impossible as it seemed, no more than a heartbeat of time could have passed.